Management Roles

How managers spend their time and came to the conclusion that there are three basic roles that managers play:- interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles.

a) Interpersonal Roles

There are three interpersonal roles in the manager's job. The first is that of Figurehead. As head of a unit the manager puts in an appearance as the representative of the organization by performing certain duties or ceremonies e.g. attending an employees wedding, welcoming guests etc.

The second role is that of leader. As a leader the manager hires employees, trains, motivates and encourages them to perform better.

Third the manager plays the interpersonal role of liaison, which involves dealing with people outside the organization on a regular basis e.g. bankers, suppliers or clients.

b) Information Roles

According to Mintzberg receiving and communicating information are perhaps the most important aspects of a managers job. First he must act as a monitor i.e. he actively watches the environment for information that might be relevant to the organization.
Secondly the manager must act as a disseminator by relaying the information that he has gathered through monitoring to the appropriate people in the organization.

Third he must act as the spokesman of the organization by presenting information of meaningful content and/or answering questions on the firms behalf. You probably have seen leaders answering questions from the press about issues relating to their organizations or defending their organizations against criticism or allegations levelled against them.

c) Decisional Roles

These are the roles that managers take when they make decisions about certain issues. Under the decisional roles the manager acts as the entrepreneur by looking for opportunities that the organization can pursue to improve itself e.g. a profitable investment.
Second the manager acts as the disturbance handler by resolving conflicts between employees and responding to situations beyond him/her control e.g. strikes, bankrupt customers, breach of contract etc.

Third the manager must act as a resource allocator by being responsible for deciding how and to whom the resources of the organization and the managers own time will be allocated.

Fourthly the manager plays the decisional role of a negotiator. In this role the manager attempts to work out agreements and contracts that operate in the best interest of the organization.

Note:
The functional definition of management as a process of planning, organizing, leading and controlling is somewhat oversimplified according to Mintzberg. Managers do much more than the four basic functions contained in the definition.